All I have to say about today is WOW!!!

I don't even know where to start with this. Jim is in London, Ontario with his Dad who had to have a procedure done today. All went well and all is OK. I am a single parent for a few days. Ainsley is pretty easy other than the fact that she misses her Daddy terribly and doesn't like changes to her world. A trip to China with her should be interesting. I had plans to start moving all the toys up to the play room so I could  cross off one more thing from my list. DID NOT HAPPEN.

Yesterday I received our agency's travel package in the mail. Yeah!!!! No dates, just info. Included in it was the information on how to send a care package to the orphanage...very awesome. I did not expect the list of 23 questions for the orphanage about Jingjing. The first three were how was she found, who found her,what was she wearing when she was found and will we be able to keep the clothes she was found in. I cannot tell you why, but I ended up a heaping mess of tears in the middle of the kitchen with Ainsley's school bus about to arrive in 10 minutes. I mean, I know all of this, it is just kind of surreal to see it in black and white. I would have hopped on a plane to China in 10 minutes if someone said it was OK. And the only person I have to talk to is a 6 year old :) I managed to file all the emotions away and continue on.

Now on to Tuesday! As you are aware, we received our I-800 approval last week on 2/29. Normally, you wait about 7 days and then you start emailing for your PDF of your paperwork that immigration sends to the US Consulate in China. I have no patience so I started emailing on Sunday. Monday around 1:00pm I got a response that we are not in the NVC system. No big shocker I was not expecting it. You are supposed to email even night until you are in the NVC system. Monday night I fired off another email. 1:00 pm on Tuesday came and went and no response so I gave up closed up the computer and started doing my chores! I didn't really expect anything so I decided to send another email before bed. About 30  minutes later I opened up the computer again to balance the check book, my latest obsession as the price of airline tickets to China keep going up. I didn't close my email so it was the first thing that popped up.........and there it was. All your Immigrations stuff has a SIM # which is your case #. This email had a GUZ# which is what the NVC gives you once you are in their system. I almost fell off my chair and I have no one to tell. Thank you texting and internet! I about 2 minutes I had informed Jim and just about the rest of the world......after I managed to stop crying for 2 minutes.

I was hoping to be in the NVC system by the end of this week. Tomorrow I should get an email officially telling me that the NVC has cabled our information to the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China. Hopefully Thursday I will have the pdf of this paperwork to send to my agency so that their rep in China can drop it and Sofie's DS 230(Visa stuff) off to the US Consulate maybe as early as Friday. 2 weeks later this paperwork is picked up and this is called the Article 5. This is overnighted to the CCCWA(look at the chart) in Beijing and we start waiting for our TA(travel approval) which we should hopefully receive in early April. You then travel 2-3 weeks after that and we won't know the exact dates until we have our TA.

What a day. Anyone who says that there are no pregnancy hormones associated with adoption is full of it!! This is quite the ride. Imagine having all the pregnancy emotions and pregnancy brain, and then have to keep track of Visa's, and Immigration stuff and not mess anything up cause it is going to cost you time, which means you are going to have to carry this kid for longer. It is hard when you are carrying a two year old too!!

I have no idea what I am going to do when I don't have this to do anymore. I have been living and breathing this adoption for almost 3 years now, since before Sofie was born. We are so close now. We are almost there Sofie. Mommy, Daddy and your sister Ainsley will be with you soon and we will never let you go!!!! We will be a family forever :)